


Operation [REDACTED]

by Froggimus_Rex



Category: Star Wars Legends: X-wing Series - Aaron Allston & Michael Stackpole
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 21:59:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5472158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Froggimus_Rex/pseuds/Froggimus_Rex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"I have my dignity!"</i>
</p><p> <i>Wedge didn't reply, letting the pause drag out until it became the pointiest of pointed silences.</i></p><p>Wes Janson, and the run of no good, terrible, very bad missions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Operation [REDACTED]

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fabrega](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fabrega/gifts).



"You need to stop him." Without so much as announcing himself, Janson stomped into the office and all but threw himself into the chair in front of Wedge's desk, one leg sprawling awkwardly over an armrest. "He's gone mad with power."

"Who has?" Wedge asked, his voice mild, not looking up from his paperwork. If he did there was a chance it'd multiply while he wasn't paying attention.

Janson swung his leg down to sit normally, then abandoned the chair altogether in favour of pacing instead, punctuating his words with florid gestures. "No, he was mad to begin with, we just made the mistake of giving him the authority to follow through. You'll just have to unpromote him. You can do that, right?"

"I _could_ ," Wedge said slowly, dubiously. "If I knew who I was supposed to be demoting and why." He had his suspicions, but 'mad to begin' with could describe a disturbingly large number of people they'd worked with over the years, including one Wes Janson.

"Loran, and he knows why!"

"Face? Does this have something to with to those requests from Intelligence for the Wraiths to borrow you?"

"Borrow me!" You'd swear the universe was against Jason with how aggrieved he sounded. "I'm a pilot, not a cup of sweetening, I have my dignity!"

Wedge didn't reply, letting the pause drag out until it became the pointiest of pointed silences.

"I do," Janson protested, then sank back into the chair, arms crossed over his chest. 

Wedge continued to be sceptical. "You never had much of a problem with Face's schemes before."

"These are different. He's _changed_ , Wedge, for the worse."

"If it's that bad you could just say no when he asks. You do outrank him again now," Wedge said, then pointedly added "Major."

"I keep trying to," Janson protested. "But he cheats! He looks at you with this expression like a lost bantha cub and-" He broke off and sighed. "I suppose you want me to start at the beginning."

"That might help," Wedge said, voice as dry as the sands of Tatooine.

* * *

Neither a particularly high or low class place, the cantina was nothing special, just another nondescript Corporate Sector waterhole. One where none of the patrons was inclined to pay attention to any of the other's business, for good or ill.

Wes leaned back against the bar, his attention split between the entranceway and the corner booth where Face and the red-headed pirate captain sat, each with their back against a wall, too far away for eavesdropping. 

He'd been nursing the same mug of lum since they'd arrived, and resisting the urge to scratch at his make-up even longer. Face's warnings about the possibility of taking his skin of with it had been dire, though possibly completely made up, and his looks were just far too valuable to risk. Though at least he wasn't suffering alone. Face's General Kargin identity, resurrected for this op, had required an even more extensive make-up job than this one.

"So you're one of the vacuum-breathers trying to cozy up to the boss." The unexpected voice by his elbow, deep and gravelly, startled him enough to spill his drink down his front, and while that'd give him a reason to order another drink, which was good, now he was covered in lum, which was bad. Also, someone had managed to sneak up on him. Which was very bad indeed.

He turned to look at the speaker. Oh, make that very, _very_ bad.

He couldn't place the alien's species, it looked something like if a Mon Cal and a rancor had an ugly lovechild who liked dressing like an Old Republic clonetrooper. A _mean_ and ugly lovechild judging by the look in its eye. 

"He's just cranky he can't challenge the Ewok to a fight," came an equally raspy but much higher voice, and Wes _had_ to stop letting people creep up behind him in this place, or at least avoid jumping when they did. He glanced over his shoulder. Two human women, one dressed in incongruously impeccable business-wear that wouldn't have been out of place on Coruscant, the other looked straight out of a swoopgang. He was going to guess the voice belonged to the latter, a guess that proved right as she continued speaking. "He's been going on about it since the boss brought up the possibility of working with you Hawk-bats. You know, that whole reputation proceeding you poodoo."

It was a testament to how many deeply terrifying women he'd met, that Wes felt much safer turning his back on Growly than Swoopbike and Business-wear. "The price of infamy," he said, aiming for jaded, or challenging. "Yours doesn't."

Swoopbike shrugged. "Hey, we're just your usual collection of freaks, deranged science experiments, and the prissiest cloned Jedi this side of the Old Republic, led by a crazy ex-Imp who tends to leave everything in her wake on fire. Sometimes on purpose."

"I'm not a Jedi, or a clone. Technically." Business-wear sounded more long-suffering than indignant. "...or a priss!" That was indignant.

"The Kaminoans who decanted her also forgot to splice in a sense of humour. But I'm getting off track, your boss and our boss are gonna be a while hashing that out, you want to play Force Keep Away until they're done."

"Sure," Wes said, his traitor mouth moving ahead of his brain. "Wait, how do you play that?"

Growly chucked, a bass rumble that vibrated in Wes's bones. "Pretty simple," he said, as the women assumed oddly familiar postures and Wes felt his feet lift off the ground. _Oh, stang._ "They throw, I try to catch."

* * *

"Face was negotiating for _three hours_."

"I can see how that would have been unpleasant." Wedge chose his words carefully. Given that Jason was clearly still in one piece, hilarious was the word that actually sprang to mind. "But it sounds all but mundane as Wraith missions go."

Janson scrubbed his hands over his face. I said I was starting at the beginning and that was just the beginning," he said. "If he'd started out this bad I'd have known to punch out when I still had the chance. It was the next mission that things started getting...weird."

"Weird."

* * *

This was the most amazing mission ever.

Wes stretched out in the bed, luxuriating in the feel of the sheets. There might have been the old cliche about soldiers and too soft beeds, but as far as he was concerned that was all lies. 

He still wasn't entirely sure why Face had wanted him along on this mission, some goodwill diplomatic he'd been pressed into doing as himself, but when asked he'd gone on about sacrificial nerfs needing an entourage, urgent missions to Ryloth, and Shalla considering him an indispensable asset, so moral support obviously. Boy, did Face seem to need it, spending almost all his downtime in Wes's company. 

Of course, if Wes had to spend all his working hours making nice with people he couldn't even ask his underlings to be all Wraiths at, regardless of how annoying they were, he'd be be wanting to spend all his time with the guy whose only concern was the free room service. 

His good mood lasted until he flipped on a news channel.

"When did we start having an affair?"

Face looked up from his breakfast, seemingly unperturbed by his dramatic entrance. "When you joined the mission," he said, sipping his caf. "You mean you hadn't figured that out, why did you think you were here?"

"The pleasure of my company?" Wes got the feeling he'd missed something important somewhere, he did not care for this feeling, it usually led to public nudity with Ewok puppets.

"Well, yes, but as far as the sludges here are concerned it's the _pleasures_ of your _company_." Sithspit. He was actually batting his eyelashes at him now. "Dia can't be here and no way was I letting them think I'm single. You should've seen the things they were writing about me _before_ my unfortunate demise."

"You should see the things they're writing about me now!" That was the important thing. "I'm both breaking up your secret marriage with that Tetran Cowall joker _and_ carrying both of yours lovechild!"

"Not all of them are saying that, some say you're getting fat." Face pointed out, because that made everything better. "And Saper just thinks you need a new tailor."

* * *

"So those _were_ real headlines," Wedge said, for a certain value of real anyway. "I'd wondered if Tycho'd just had someone mock those up when he brought them to show me."

"Did he now," Janson muttered darkly.

"For what it's worth, I do think it was just the cut of your clothes."

If glares were lasers, Janson would never need another blaster. "You're just as bad as Dia."

"So now you're blaming her as well as her boyfriend?"

"After all that I sent her a message asking if she was really on a mission to Ryloth." Janson took a folded sheet of flimsiplat, printing visible on both sides, and offered it to Wedge. "That was what she sent back."

He took the printout and started reading it. Then turned it over and continued reading. He tilted his head to one side thoughtfully. "Do you think she wrote every one of these 'HA's or did she just start copying herself after a point?"

"You're not helping."

"Sorry." Wedge was well aware he probably didn't sound very sorry, but trying to figure out how many times exactly she'd typed that was distracting. "So what happened next."

"He asked me to help bug an office."

"And that was bad how, exactly?"

"The kind of office being bugged."

* * *

Despite the comfort of its thick cushions and smooth nerfhide upholstery, Wes fidgeted in his chair. The actual mission objection had gone off smoothly enough, Wes surreptitiously dropping off the the bug, in this case a miniature droid not even the size of his thumbnail, shaped like an actual insect to boot, while the secretary had shown him and his 'partner' to these seats. The only problem was having to sit through their actual meeting. 

The sound of the analog chrono on the office wall ticking loudly in a suddenly uncomfortable silence made him realise the counsellor, a black-furred Drall female, was looking at him expectantly. He rubbed the back of his neck and tried to remember what they'd been talking about. "Look, maybe this was a mistake, I mean everything's good, we're good, really."

She made a tutting noise and fixed him with a stare that somehow managed to be both stern and compassionate. "I realise that most sentients find this kind of activity intimidating or a sign of failure, but making this appointment is the first step, being honest is the second." She consulted her notes. "While you think about that, let's hear what Mister... Kettch, was it, has to say."

Both he and the counsellor turned to face the third occupant of the room, and Wes still had no clue where Face had dug him up, the kriffing little nerf herder not being more specific than 'he's friend of a friend'. "Kettch very insecure in this relationship," the Ewok said, enunciating each individual syllable. "Scared his mate may just have fetish."

* * *

"You're laughing." Janson's dour tone made him sound far more like Hobbie than himself. "I don't think you're being particularly sympathetic."

Wedge coughed as he attempted to smother his laughter. "Oh, no, I am. Completely." Somehow he managed not to ask if the counselling had worked. He was really rooting for Janson and 'Kettch' to make a go of it.

"I don't believe you." 

"I am." The lie came easily to him. "Though I'm starting to wonder if you're just upset Face came up with these before you had a chance to."

"You would say that and it's hurtful, Wedge, truly hurtful. But that wasn't even the worst one."

Despite his attempts to keep his expression schooled, Wedge could feel his eyebrows rising up towards his hairline. "Really, there was something worse?"

* * *

"Heads ups, Rogue Two!"

Wes caught the mass of fabric right before it hit him in the face. "What's this?"

Face's expression was disgustingly cheerful. "Disguise for the latest op, you're going in as a crew member of the _Break Fluid_. The Wraiths already have theirs."

"That's an odd name for a ship," Wes said, distracted by shaking out the wadded-up clothing, There didn't seem to be enough fabric here for a coverall.

"That's because it's a tapcafe."

"What."

"A tapcafe, that's your apron."

Now that he'd gotten it unfolded, Wes could see it was indeed an apron. Made out of a cheerful purple cloth, just a few shades short of eye-searing, with the words _Break Fluid_ printed on the front in an actually eye-searing shade of yellow. "What," he repeated, helplessly.

"One of our target's main income streams is a tapcafe chain that dominates this sector." Face's explanation was all sincerity. Sincerity that Wes had learned to distrust. "So we're going to open our own independent one right across from his headquarters. He can't stand the idea of competition. Then while he's distracted by trying crush our tapcafe out of business, we'll hit from a direction he'll never see coming. You'll be working behind the counter, making drinks, you're just the kind of person who's sure to put him off guard when he comes in to scope the place out."

Wes was sure there were any number of completely reasonable flaws in this plan, and that he should point them out. He finally managed "But I can barely make my own caf!"

Face clapped him on the shoulder. "Don't worry, Squeaky will teach you everything he knows."

* * *

Wedge took his time before replying, lips pressed tightly together to keep from laughing, again, and wounding Janson's hitherto non-existent dignity further. "I see," he said finally. "I'll have a few words with Face on your behalf."

"Thanks, Wedge." Janson slumped back in his chair in relief. "I'll owe you one."

Wedge nodded, and Janson rose to leave. He'd just about made it out the door before Wedge broke. "Make it a large with extra sweetening."

The look of betrayal on Janson's face as the door shut moved Wedge to tears. Granted, they were tears of laughter, but tears none the less.


End file.
